SAM fires two guards after walkout threat

Published 10:00 pm, Wednesday, January 4, 2006

Two Seattle Art Museum guards were fired Wednesday for threatening to walk out, which the museum perceived as a security breach.

One of the fired guards, Susan Brooks, said many of her colleagues had been anxious for months because they didn't know whether they would still be employed when the museum closed downtown this week. They were "trying anything to impress their supervisors. Especially the people with health insurance were fearful of being cut," she said.

SAM employs 50 guards, roughly a third of them full time with health insurance. None are union members.

Brooks said 21 guards met with her and fellow guard Gabriel Dixon several weeks ago to try to get museum administrators to tell them who would still be working. When Brooks and Dixon threatened to walk off the job Tuesday, the museum said none would be cut.

"We need them all," museum spokeswoman Erika Lindsay said. She said the museum didn't clarify the job status of the guards because the museum didn't know how many would be needed in the transition. But she added that because the art still needs protection and there will be guards working at the Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park, which reopens Jan. 14, nobody would get walking papers.

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"We asked them to put it in writing, and they said no," Brooks said. She told SAM if she didn't get assurances in writing, "some" guards would walk off Wednesday.

In response, SAM fired both Brooks and Dixon.

Brooks said she doesn't know how many guards would have supported a walkout. A casual survey of guards working Tuesday night suggested none. Nobody willing to stop and talk to a reporter said he or she would join a walkout.

Will guards support Brooks and Dixon now?

"I don't think so," Brooks said. "People feel they really need their jobs and don't want to threaten them. The reason Gabe and I took the lead is that neither one of us needs this job. I'm doing it to see art and get some exercise."

Lindsay said the guards' walkout threat was a security problem. "Potentially, people and art could be at risk."

Brooks said she doesn't believe the museum really intends to keep 50 guards when the downtown site is closed and the Volunteer Park exhibits aren't "huge" audience draws.

"The problem is lack of communication," she said. She said people in other support positions have also been worried about their jobs and received no information until this week. "That's not right," she said.

Lindsay emphasized that many guards have worked at SAM for decades and are loyal to the museum. "This is two people who are unhappy and wouldn't take the museum's word that they weren't being laid off. When they threatened to walk out a second time, we had to do something."